Mark’s Alternative AFI List: The 100 Greatest American Movies of All T

Does anyone know why (on what basis) Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai are classified as American by the AFI?

Olivia Newton John was SO hot in those leathers.
I met a double of hers in Aberystwyth in 1997.
She was in a brilliant white trouser suit, and she took me to 'Porkies'.
Was probably top 10 best looking women in Wales.
Claire her name was.

Then ignore the non-American ones.

I think they are both joint American and English productions:

https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23993-LAWRENCE-OFARABIA

Peeping Tom, which is 75 on the list, is all English however, I believe.

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Again, welcome to MoFo!

These are all cool selections that you don't typically see on most of the top top 100 lists or whatever that come out. Obviously those are all well regarded, but generally don't make the cut for whatever reasons or are under appreciated a bit.

Hamlet from 1996 is amazing and is really spectacular how it was filmed and in Branagah's bold approach to not only film the whole Shakespeare text in its entirety, but in what he did with set and costume design and updating it to the Victorian era.

Ace in the Hole is one of the great and underappreciated Billy Wilder films and a satire on journalism, the media, fake news, and manipulating and interfering in the story. And Billy Wilder did this before La dolce vita, Network, Natural Born Killers, and Nightcrawler. There'd been other work to take shots at the news such as The Front Page or Hawks' version in His Girl Friday, and the media and newspaper in general were no stranger to being targets of criticism... one of the overlooked factors in people who like to be naysayers toward Citizen Kane, but Ace in the Hole might be one of the first films that really looks into journalists and the media as ammoral at best and immoral at worst participants and activist instead of objective reporters. It's a theme or message that apparently here in 2024 the news and mainstream media still have yet to figure out or rather care about. Ace in the Hole is a deeply cynical film, but an important film in a nation where we have a first amendment and freedom of the press (because an informed population is so key to preserving our Republic due to people taking a part through a Democratic process of voting). We need objective, fair, and fact based reporting. Today there are more "Tatums" out there who would rather insert themselves into the story, use unethical tricks, be propagandists, activist, and sensationalize.

Where are the other two Star Wars films?

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He hid in the forest, read books with great zeal
He loved Che Guevera, a revolutionary veal
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Dawg Branagh's Hamlet is excellent. I love everything about it except one thing, and it isn't the length. A four-hour movie sits well with me if I can pause it. Let me refresh my beverage and I'm happy. What bugs me is the actors talk a bit softly, and Shakespeare wrote with such finesse it has a tendency to make me sleepy. It's not dull; it's melodic and hypnotic. Branagh did such an excellent job with the script. His Hamlet is one of my favorite films.

Fair enough.

Any idea specifically what the American input was?

There's so many serious contenders from the 70s:

McCabe and Mrs Miller 1971
Two Lane Blacktop 1971
The Andromeda Strain 1971
The Godfather 1972
Cabaret 1972
Mean Streets 1973
Badlands 1973
The Exorcist 1973
The Friends of Eddie Coyle 1973
The Way we Were 1973
The Godfather Part 2 1974
Chinatown 1974
Jaws 1975
Dog Day Afternoon 1975
All the President's Men 1976
Taxi Driver 1976
The Omen 1976
Network 1976
Killer of Sheep 1977
Star Wars: a New Hope 1977
Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977
The Deer Hunter 1978
Superman 1978
Alien 1979
Apocalypse Now 1979
The Warriors 1979

Nearly done. I have 91 confirmed, and need to choose 9 from my maybes which are as follows:

The Thief of Bagdad 1924
Metropolis 1927
King Kong 1933
The Roaring Twenties 1939
Rebecca 1940
The Maltese Falcon 1941
Key Largo 1948
Sunset Boulevard 1950
The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951
Limelight 1952
Shane 1953
Bad Day at Black Rock 1955
Night of the Hunter 1955
The Killing 1956
Forbidden Planet 1956
3:10 To Yuma 1957
Sweet Smell of Success 1957
To Kill a Mockingbird 1962
Two Lane Blacktop 1971
The Exorcist 1973
The Friends of Eddie Coyle 1973
The Way we Were 1973
Dog Day Afternoon 1975
Network 1976
Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977
The Warriors 1979
Raging Bull 1980
The Empire Strikes Back 1980
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 1989
Goodfellas 1991
Se7en 1995
The Matrix 1999
Gladiator 2000
The Bourne Identity 2002
Sideways 2004
Inglourious Basterds 2009
Drive 2011
Django Unchained 2012
Whiplash 2014

Apologies Mark for the further submission.
This is my considered top 100 in case of interest.

The Birth of a Nation 1915
Way Down East 1920
The General 1926
Sunrise 1928
Scarface 1932
A Night at the Opera 1935
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1936
The Adventures of Robin Hood 1938
The Wizard of Oz 1939
Gone With the Wind 1939

Mr Smith Goes to Washington 1939
Citizen Kane 1941
Casablanca 1942
Laura 1944
Leave Her to Heaven 1945
My Darling Clementine 1946
Out of the Past 1947
Key Largo 1948
A Streetcar Named Desire 1951
Singin’ in the Rain 1952

Rear Window 1954
On the Waterfront 1954
Rebel Without a Cause 1955
*The Searchers 1956
Sweet Smell of Success 1957
12 Angry Men 1957
Touch of Evil 1958
Vertigo 1958
Rio Bravo 1959
Anatomy of a Murder 1959

North by Northwest 1959
Psycho 1960
The Birds 1963
The Sound of Music 1965
The Graduate 1967
Bonnie and Clyde 1967
Point Blank 1967
In The Heat of the Night 1967
Once Upon a Time in the West 1968
2001: A Space Odyssey 1969

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969
McCabe and Mrs Miller 1971
The Andromeda Strain 1971
Two Lane Blacktop 1971
The Godfather 1972
Cabaret 1972
Mean Streets 1973
Badlands 1973
The Godfather Part 2 1974
Chinatown 1974

Jaws 1975
Dog Day Afternoon 1975
All the President's Men 1976
Taxi Driver 1976
The Omen 1976
Killer of Sheep 1977
Star Wars: A New Hope 1977
The Deer Hunter 1978
Superman 1978
Alien 1979

Apocalypse Now 1979
Airplane 1980
Body Heat 1981
Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981
The King of Comedy 1982
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial 1982
Blade Runner 1982
Stranger Than Paradise 1984
The Terminator 1984
Paris, Texas 1984
Ghostbusters 1984

Beverly Hills Cop 1984
Blue Velvet 1986
Manhunter 1986
Fatal Attraction 1987
Rain Man 1988
Mississippi Burning 1988
When Harry Met Sally 1989
Goodfellas 1991
The Player 1992
Groundhog Day 1993

Pulp Fiction 1994
The Shawshank Redemption 1994
Seven 1995
L.A. Confidential 1997
Saving Private Ryan 1998
Donnie Darko 2001
Mulholland Drive 2001
No Country for Old Men 2007
There Will be Blood 2008
Wall-E 2008

Drive 2011
The Master 2012
Frances Ha 2012
Argo 2012
The Great Gatsby 2013
Nightcrawler 2014
La La Land 2016
Arrival 2016
The Killing of a Sacred Dear 2017
The Lighthouse 2019


cut:
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Forbidden Planet

1 cut TBC

I have
1907-1926 1
1927-1946 13
1947-1966 18
1967-1986 40
1987-2006 14
2007-2024 12

I have 31 the same as Mark, and 41the same as AFI.

iluv2viddyfilms, thanks for the welcome. Glad you liked my list.

“Where are the other two Star Wars films?”

I_Wear_Pants, I love ESB and ROTJ, but they weren’t great enough to make my list IMO. However, I’m told that Peeping Tom is actually a British film, so if I were to do this list again, I might put ESB in that extra spot.

Robert, great list! Glad we agree 1/3 of the time!

Mark C